FDNY Employee Arrested for Selling Illegal Fireworks

Spectators watch Fourth of July fireworks from Manhattan. Police arrested an off-duty FDNY employee on June 22, 2012, for allegedly selling illegal fireworks.View Full Caption

DNAinfo/Paul Lomax

LOWER EAST SIDE — What a burn. A Fire Department employee was arrested early Friday for allegedly selling illegal fireworks to undercover cops, police said.

Anthony Baijnauth, a 24-year-old emergency medical technician with the FDNY, was arrested at 12:10 a.m. after undercover officers paid $250 for a "large bag" of illegal fireworks on the street at Norfolk Street and East Houston Street, an NYPD spokesman said.

Police snared Baijnauth when they called a phone number that was allegedly for customers who wanted to buy illegal fireworks. Investigators discovered the phone number during a previous investigation, police said.

Investigators arranged a time and place to meet Baijnuth, then arrested him after he sold police the fireworks, police said. He was charged with unlawfully dealing with fireworks.

Baijnuth could be suspended as a result of the arrest, an FDNY spokesman said. A Queens resident, he was hired by the FDNY in July 2009, the spokesman said.

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